8.7.11

QUARTER-FINALS DAY

It wasn't a vintage first day at the Wuxi Classic with some players still clearly, and understandably, a little rusty as the season limbers into life.

Peter Ebdon bookended his 5-3 defeat of Rouzi Maimaiti with two centuries but, in between, it wasn't particularly pretty.

Stephen Maguire beat Liang Wenbo 5-2 and proved that you only have to play better than the other guy. Maguire never really left first gear but Liang was very poor.

I thought it was a shame to see him struggling quite so badly. It's only two years since the Chinese reached the Shanghai Masters final and was threatening to take over from Ding Junhui as his country's no.1 player.

He doesn't seem to have much of a B game, so if he's not firing on all cylinders, potting the long balls and scoring, he doesn't have much to fall back on.

Matthew Stevens surprisingly lost to Yu Delu but Graeme Dott appeared to play quite tidily in putting away Cao Yupeng.

The four top seeds come into the fray today. Ding has appeared in the final of this tournament in each of its three previous stagings.

He trails Maguire 6-3 in career meetings but has won the last three and, in hie hometown, will fancy the job again today.

The first TV match pits Ebdon against Shaun Murphy, the defending champion.